realloudoun

How could anyone possibly be offended by this mascot?

With their usual keen and penetrating insight, our all-Republican Loudoun Board of Supervisors has uncovered what’s really behind all the criticism of the Washington Redskins name. It is not, as you might think, that people could actually be upset that a professional football team has a name that is a racial slur.

No, what is really going on is a sinister attack on the very underpinnings of our free enterprise system! And, in the face of such a threat to the very wellspring of our freedoms, our Board is ever ready to respond with its usual stirring orations, specious analogies, and meaningless non-binding resolutions!

And, to take a courageous and daring stand in favor of sports in the process!

And don’t forget to throw a few ideological bones to the right-wing talk-radio listeners among their supporters, with a lot of outrage directed toward the “elitist news organizations” (Chairman Scott York’s words) and liberal “political correctness.”

Explaining that “Government’s job is to help companies succeed,” Board Chairman Scott York (R) said that he was “disgusted” and “kind of had enough” with all the namby-pambys who are attacking poor Dan Snyder, and on Wednesday’s Board meeting introduced a resolution supporting the “right” of the Redskins to call themselves whatever is best for “their brand.” York’s resolution even notes that some of the Washington Redskins’ best friends have been Indians (“WHEREAS, the Washington Redskins have a proud heritage of Native Americans who have served as players and staff”). Case closed!

An equally angry Supervisor Ralph Buona (R-Ashburn) invoked the extremely businesslike arrangement he has championed with the team (“Loudoun County is a customer of the Washington Redskins. We have a financial deal in place with the Redskins,” Buona quavered) under which (a) Loudoun County gives the Redskins $2 million in tax dollars and (b) the Redskins move their training facility and headquarters out of Loudoun. Glad we have supervisors with such business acumen!

Buona added that the criticism of the team’s name is “political correctness run amok.”

The resolution, needless to say, passed unanimously.

Pardon us for raining on this little parade of self-righteous indignation, but just possibly Mr. Buona might like to see what some actual Indians feel about the matter. Here for example is the view of the chief of the Oneida Nation, who met with NFL officials last week (and who points out that “those who defend the use of the word ‘Redskins’ present themselves as the sole arbiters of what is acceptable. They present themselves that way because those engineering the racial assaults – rather than the targets of such assaults – have always claimed supremacy”).

During the Board’s discussion Wednesday night, Suzanne Volpe (R-Algonkian), trying hard once again to secure the coveted Dumbest Supervisor Award, turned to that touchstone of American values, the “Republican Party Creed,” and quoted its stirring opening lines, “We believe that the free enterprise system is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice,” then went on to note that she was particularly incensed that DC congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton was getting awfully uppity in presuming to weigh in on the issue of the Redskins name (Norton had the sheer effrontery to disagree with York in an online debate sponsored by US News, and to suggest that if the team dropped a name that is by definition a racial slur, it would actually be good for business). Volpe declared, “I don’t need some House of Representatives non-voting member in D.C. trying to dictate to a privately-owned business headquartered in our county what their name should be.”

Yes, that would be a non-voting member elected by a few million people in the city whose name the team bears, as opposed to the few thousand people who voted for a county supervisor in the place where the team has moved its training facility out of and will soon move its headquarters out of.

Volpe then went on to warn of the extremely dangerous slippery slope that might come when ordinary citizens in a democracy who are not such important “customers” of a company as Loudoun County is of the Redskins presume to express an opinion about the way a business conducts itself:

“Where does it stop? What if somebody doesn’t like Telos, or somebody doesn’t like Sprint?” she asked.

Yes, we can once again be glad that the only thing standing between us and a socialist, politically correct takeover of private enterprise is our Loudoun Board of Supervisors!